


Detachment

by deathwailart



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt, F/F, Healing, Post-Canon, Rebuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-23
Updated: 2014-07-23
Packaged: 2018-02-10 04:09:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2010423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathwailart/pseuds/deathwailart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one talks about the hero after they win, Miranda's starting to see why.</p>
<p>Written for the 30 day drabble challenge: detachment</p>
            </blockquote>





	Detachment

**Author's Note:**

> Connected to [Bare](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2010408), [Save Me From Curious Conscience](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1119965) and [Day By Day](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1095816) but it works alone.

It hurts. Of course it hurts. Miranda can understand the way Perdita pulls away whenever Miranda reaches out to her now that the reality of the situation has set in. Now that she's no longer drugged or in a hospital bed and simply glad to be alive. She smiled more then although the amount of painkillers they had to keep her on – of course Miranda read the notes, this is the woman she loves even when she had no business falling in love on a suicide mission, the woman she brought back from the dead piece by piece, almost in tears when she saw the steady rise and fall of her chest, the thump of her heart, never able to forget the touch of her hand when she woke up too early and reached out, she can't fully trust another person to bring her back when she was the one to put Shepard together again – it's not a big surprise. But there were visitors. The members of the Normandy crew, not just the ones who went into the fight with her on the field but the surviving members of support staff, from the original to the second Normandy and then the refit under Alliance colours. Members of old squads. Her mother whom Miranda finally met for the very first time, her father too, battered and exhausted but she finally got to see where Perdita got it from; the need to do her job and to put others first, offering warmth even when she should rightfully be accepting it. An endless stream of people wanting to thank her, to touch her still healing hands, survivors inspired by her fight.  
  
Now it's the hard part because they took too long to find her and no one ever talks about the aftermath, what the hero does in the end.  
  
They only want to know that the hero struggled to face all the challenges on their way, that they made it through the very worst, that the achieved victory. They don't want to know about how they're a person who loses their temper when the pain medication doesn't work and Miranda has never hated how good a job she did before but if she hadn't made the choices she made over two years ago then painkillers would work and Perdita wouldn't spend days curled in on herself and not wanting to be touched. When she stumbles with the weight of her new left leg because it's going to take time for it to be seamless and Perdita doesn't know how not to push herself. How she can't put herself first even when the weight of having to smile and talk is dragging her down and leaves her exhausted.  
  
Miranda doesn't know what to do with the kind of hurt that settles itself on Perdita's shoulders. She doesn't know how to comfort when she doesn't want to overstep and patronise her, saying she understands when she obviously doesn't. When she wants to validate how Perdita is feeling but the words catch in her throat around the endless litany of apologies that try to escape even though it's outwith her control.  
  
All she can do is rest a hand on her shoulder, link their fingers, to ask what she needs and wants even though she anticipates anyway. At least at night Perdita will move close, seeking out warmth and something real, a hand on Miranda's chest or at her wrist, resting her head on Miranda's shoulder, her leg – the real one – over Miranda's.  
  
She's there and Miranda can wait. She can be at her side like she was for two years and instead of rebuilding alone, they'll do it together.


End file.
